Boosterism: the Media and President-elect Obama

After detailing a few over the top media products featuring Barack Obama, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz asks:

“Are the media capable of merchandizing the moment, packaging a president-elect for profit?”

Mr. Kurtz then answers his own question:

“Yes, they are.

“What's troubling here goes beyond the clanging of cash registers,” Kurtz writes. “Media outlets have always tried to make a few bucks off the next big thing. The endless campaign is over, and there's nothing wrong with the country pulling together, however briefly, behind its new leader. But we seem to have crossed a cultural line into mythmaking.”

Now it’s my turn to ask a question: Has Howard Kurtz been unaware that the media has been engaged in mythmaking since Barack Obama announced his candidacy, or maybe we should say the media has aided and abetted Obama in his own cleverly managed mythmaking. Here’s how ABC News reported Obama’s announcement in Feb. 2007:

“Standing outside the Historic Old State Capitol building where Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech condemning slavery and calling for the United States to unite, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a 45-year-old with two years of federal legislative experience under his belt, today announced that he will claim the mantle of Lincoln and as president heal a divided nation.”

It was probably not a coincidence that on 60 Minutes last night the new president-elect mentioned he’d been reading Lincoln.

In his conclusion, Kurtz reaches further back than Lincoln to remind us the myth of Obama has included more than a few attributes of Christ.

“Obama's days of walking on water won't last indefinitely. His chroniclers will need a new story line. And sometime after Jan. 20, they will wade back into reality.”

Footnote: I believe it was Christ who urged his followers to worship God, not him. And whatever one's faith tradition, a warning against idolatry - especially in reference to another human being - seems appropriate.